


Warm nights

by wordswehavesaid



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, M/M, Sleepy Cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-14
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-30 13:36:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3938764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordswehavesaid/pseuds/wordswehavesaid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ever since he was struck by lightning, Barry has run at a higher temperature than most people.</p><p>That can sometimes make sharing a bed difficult. Particularly with a partner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warm nights

**Author's Note:**

> My sister demanded a completely fluffy one-shot, no deaths or near-breakups after the last two I wrote, so I just wrote this one out. Hopefully you all enjoy!

A bead of sweat rolls down his forehead, the trail like an itch against his skin he can’t ignore, and so blearily Barry finds himself unwillingly awake, gazing at the bright lights on the bedside table for lack of anything else though it stings his eyes. It takes his brain a few extra moments to register the lights as the readout from the digital clock. 2:33 A.M. He’s been asleep for just two hours.

Barry gives a quiet, pitiful groan, flips his pillow to the cool side. It does little when he’s basically being smothered. He tries to roll onto his back, but it’s hard to break the grip of a man he knows capable of breaking necks with his bare hands. Even if all Oliver is doing right now is curling around Barry in his sleep like some burly boa constrictor.

Ever since he was struck by lightning, Barry has run at a higher temperature than most people. He’s not at Ronnie or Professor Stein’s 106, but high-energy systems like his own require a higher output of energy. Running helps a lot with that, but even when his body is at rest or maintaining a ‘normal’ speed to keep with everyone else his heart is still pumping much faster, his metabolism and every other function is still thrumming along, and so the excess energy is given off in heat instead of kinetically.

Normally that’s fine, save one incident when Joe had tried to rouse him from a nap on the couch and ended up calling Caitlin in a panic because Barry was ‘burning up’. He wasn’t then and he isn’t now. He doesn’t feel sick, just stifled.

Oliver would probably deny it to his dying breath, but the man is naturally given to cuddling, probably a leftover habit from the days or rather nights before the island when it was some girl from the clubs he’d have slung his arms around the waist of, and not Barry. Barry usually tries not to think about that, just appreciates that Oliver is so accustomed. He kind of likes a good cuddle, too.

But now that they’re pretty well into spring the bedroom is already comfortably warm. The sheet and blanket plus Oliver’s body wrapped all around him is not working out well with Barry’s exothermic sleep system. He thinks if he were a cartoon there’d be steam coming out of his ears if he got anymore overheated.

Oliver shifts in his sleep as Barry continues to fidget in discomfort, and he releases a sigh of a breath that blows hot air right over the back of Barry’s neck, already sticky with sweat. He can’t take it any longer.

“Oliver?” He tries, a bit soft at first, then more daring, “Oliver.”

“Hm?” Those strong arms squeeze around him for a moment before he hears and feels a yawn. Barry squirms. A kiss is pressed to his neck now, and still gets him to marginally calm his movements. “Barry, it’s not even three.” Oliver’s voice is a gravelly rumble, voice still thick with sleep. “What’s up?”

“I can’t sleep,” he says, “it’s too hot.”

“Doesn’t feel hot,” comes the mumbled reply. It probably doesn’t. And Oliver tends to measure things in island-extremes, anyway, as if since he’s survived that it’d be weak to complain now.

Barry has absolutely none of that hang-up. “Well feel me,” he retorts, then squeaks in surprise when one of Oliver’s hands make a lazy attempt to sneak under his shirt. “Oliver, what’re you—”

“If you have to ask then I really am too tired for this. I’ll feel you up in the morning,” Oliver decides, sounding like he’s about to just drop right off again.

“Unbelievable,” Barry says to the room at large. Frowns. Then lets the lightning spark behind his eyes as he prepares to tap into that pent-up energy inside.

He hears a half-frustrated, half-panicked shout of “Barry!” an instant later, knows the rapid breakaway from Oliver’s embrace has woken him more thoroughly than his words could earlier. But he’s already in the bathroom, tossing his sweat-dampened clothes in a hamper and hopping into the shower. The sound of the water will clue the other man in.

Sure enough, he soon hears the bathroom door open. “Barry, come back to bed.”

“I’m getting a shower.”

“No you’re not,” Oliver replies, sounds like he’s trying to hold back a laugh.

“Yes I am,” is his rebuttal, and he reaches for and squints at the label of one of the bottles Oliver has in here. He might as well, and maybe it’ll make him less late for work in the morning.

“Look, I…wasn’t exactly awake yet,” the older man admits. “Could you please tell me what’s wrong?”

“I get hot. Warm. A higher temperature than normal people,” he does his best to clarify. “More when I’m at rest or sleeping. It just gets uncomfortable, that’s all.” The cool water hitting his back and washing over his body is working rather well, and he can feel himself calming. In hindsight, he’s probably been acting a bit peevish, so he adds, “It’s really not a big deal. Go back to bed, I’ll be in in a minute.”

He doesn’t hear the door open again, however. “Do you need me to turn on the AC?” Oliver suggests, clearly after thinking over what he’s told him.

Barry shakes his head, then remembers that doesn’t do much good. “No, that’ll just get expensive. And you don’t even pay for this loft.” He knows he wouldn’t really want to explain to Thea why her electricity bill suddenly skyrocketed.

Oliver makes a grumpy sounding noise at the reminder that he’s rich-people-broke. Barry snickers behind the safety of the shower curtain. “Maybe, but I don’t want you to be losing sleep or uncomfortable.”

He’s finished washing up. Truthfully he could’ve been done minutes ago, but he wanted to stand under the cold spray long enough to get a bit chilled instead, hoping that’ll help. But talking to each other over the running water is getting annoying, so he shuts it off. Then reaches a hand out around the curtain. “Could you point out the towels? Or just hand me one? Woah!”

There’s a yank on his arm and he’s tugged bodily out of the shower, Oliver wrapping a towel, and his arms, around him. “I want to accommodate you, Barry, and that includes your powers,” the other man murmurs into his wet hair. Then he takes a sniff, and Barry can feel the smile at recognizing the scent of his own conditioner when the other man presses a kiss there.

Barry’s struggling to contain a smile of his own as he does his best to dry off mid-embrace, though he says, “I can tough it. Really.”

Oliver pulls back, a stubborn set to his jaw and he seems to be thinking something over. Barry just shakes his head and moves past him out of the bathroom, going for his drawer and a fresh set of pajamas. The overhead fan being turned on causes him to glance over his shoulder at the other vigilante walking to the bed, where he pulls down both sheet and blanket.

“Oliver?” He questions. The other man just lays himself out on the mattress, bracing one hand behind his head and using the other to beckon him over.

“Leave the rest off?”

He’s only got a fresh pair of boxers on. Barry blushes, though there’s hardly much reason to at this point, and in a blur has joined Oliver back on the bed. “Now you’re just going to be cold,” he points out, moving to pull the bedcovers back up for him.

“No I won’t,” is Oliver’s matter-of-fact reply before he’s placing his hands on Barry’s shoulders and guiding him to rest overtop him. Their legs re-tangle and each wraps their arms around the other. Barry’s head lays on his chest, just over the steady, slow thump of the man’s heart he can never hope to match. It doesn’t stop him from matching his breathing to it, a lethargy settling into his bones he hasn’t felt since waking up.

The coolness to the air from the fan stirring it up is a sufficient counterpoint to the warmth of the body beneath him. Oliver is still rather warm, though, so Barry feels he has to inform him, “You know this’ll only work till summer, right?”

“Yeah, well by then Thea will have turned the air-conditioning on of her own accord,” Oliver mutters, eyes drifting shut. The lack of previous sleep is catching up to both of them fast.

But he can’t resist prodding him in the side with a laugh. “Mooch.”

Oliver just pulls him in closer, tighter, to ward off any further attack. “Blanket.”

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah, cuteness abounds. Thanks so much for reading, and let me know your thoughts!


End file.
